THE 7TH MOON [Aemond Targaryen]

Twelve - Dear Aemond,

Laenora Velaryon wrote letters to her betrothed for days on end after her grandfather's passing. She mourned him, mourned him ever so greatly that the bastard's cries at night had been inconsolable, she'd awoken on many an occasion to her step father at her bedside, pushing back her hair and soothing her until it was all over. Daemon had truly been her only solace in the loss.

"Tis okay my child. Was just a dream." He'd whispered

She waited for Aemond's call, for his word, ink to paper, but nothing ever came. Not even a syllable off his tongue. She awoke at dawn each day, more tired than the last, and pleaded with the maesters to turn over the letters they must have been hiding from her, but alas there was not one.

She felt like a small girl again, waiting on Aemond, hanging on for dear life. She felt stupid, for believing him when he said he'd write to her, she'd never believed a word he'd said before so why now? But most of all, she felt confused, why in her own king's death was she more concerned for her uncle? Her selfish fucking uncle.

She was never to hear a word from Aemond again, that was the truth she had settled upon. But the princess was utterly wrong, as a message from her betrothed finally befell upon her lap, but only on the day Aegon usurped her mother's throne. Her throne. They'd taken it all from her.

Her future. Her birthright. Everything.

***

"Aegon has been crowned as Viserys's successor."

Rhaenys words felt like a dagger to the heart for not just Rhaenyra but for her daughter too. Rhaenyra had always known that the greens might make a move for her throne but she'd never expected it to be quite so soon after her father's death. Whilst Laenora felt her heart sink like the crab feeders army along the sand.

"They crowned him..." Nyra winced grasping her stomach. "How long ago?

"I couldn't be sure. I was made a prisoner in my quarters whilst the queen made her preparations."

"Alicent demanded you declare for Aegon?"

"I refused her."

"And yet you are alive."

"Helaena..." The princess whispered, her pale hand grasped at her throat as if the words burnt.

"What?"

"She told me to leave before her mother came, after my grandfather's death."

"No doubt you would have been taken prisoner too if the girl had not warned you."

"They would have had my own daughter declare for Aegon..."

"They crowned him in the dragon pit, I witnessed it myself before fleeing on Meleys."

"They crowned him before the masses?"

"So that the masses would see him as their rightful king."

"Who witnessed it? Who of the family?"

"He was there Laenora." Rhaenys didn't have to say his name for Laenora to know that Aemond had committed ruin upon her.

"I think I am going to be sick..."